Benjamin Banneker, Pioneer Negro Mathematician

Abstract

In almost every history of the Negro in the United States one can find an account of the incidental contributions of Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) to the social history of Ms race. But no chronicle is readily available of the scientific life of Banneker as a student of mathematics, almanac compiler, surveyor, and astronomer. The object of this article is to provide such an account of the scientific activity of Benjamin Banneker, whom W. Douglas Brown called “the first American Negro to challenge the world by the independent power of his intellect,” and to indicate how close Banneker comes to approximating the composite picture of the mathematician in the United States at the end of the eighteenth century.